‘Stop asking me anything, Bottle. And stop looking at me like I’ve gone mad or something.’
‘You’d better not, Sergeant. Go mad, that is. You’re the only sane one left.’
‘Does that assessment include you?’
Bottle grimaced, then spat out another wad of the grass he’d taken to chewing. Reached for a fresh handful.
Aye, answer enough.
‘Almost dark,’ Fiddler said, eyeing once more the quaint village ahead. Crossroads, tavern and stable, a smithy down the main street, in front of a huge pile of tailings, and what seemed too many residences, rows of narrow-laned mews, each abode looking barely enough for a small family. Could be there was some other industry, a quarry or potter’s manufactory, somewhere on the other side of the village-he thought he could see a gravel road wending up a hill past the eastern edge.
Strangely quiet for dusk. Workers still chained to their workbenches? Maybe. But still, not even a damned dog in that street. ‘I don’t like the looks of this,’ he said. ‘You sure you smell nothing awry, Bottle?’
‘Nothing magical. Doesn’t mean there isn’t a hundred Edur crouched inside those houses, just waiting for us.’
‘So send in a squirrel or something, damn you.’
‘I’m looking, Sergeant, but if you keep interrupting me…’
‘Lord Hood, please sew up the mouths of mages, I implore you.’
‘Sergeant, I’m begging you. We’ve got six squads of Edur less than a league behind us, and I’m damned tired of dodging javelins. Let me concentrate.’
Aye, concentrate on this fist down your throat, y’damned rat’kisser. Oh, I’m way too tired, way too old. Maybe, if we get through this-hah!-I’ll just creep away, vanish into the streets of this Letheras. Retire. Take up fishing. Or maybe knitting. Funeral shawls. Bound to be a thriving enterprise for a while, I’d wager. Once the Adjunct arrives with the rest of us snarly losers and exacts a pleasant revenge for all us dead marines. No, stop thinking that way. We’re still alive.
‘Found a cat, Sergeant. Sleeping in the kitchen of that tavern. It’s having bad dreams.’
‘So become its worse nightmare, Bottle, and quick.’
Birds chirping in the trees behind them. Insects busy living and dying in the grasses around them. The extent of his world now, a tiresome travail punctuated by moments of profound terror. He itched with filth and could smell the stale stench of old fear, like redolent stains in the skin.
Who in Hood’s name are these damned Letherii anyway? So this damned empire with its Edur overlords scrapped with the Malazan Empire. Laseen’s problem, not ours. Damn you, Tavore, we get to this point and vengeance ain’t enough-
‘Got her,’ Bottle said. ‘Awake… stretching-yes, got to stretch, Sergeant, don’t ask me why. All right, three people in the kitchen, all sweating, all rolling their eyes-they look terrified, huddling that way. I hear sounds in the tavern. Someone’s singing…’
Fiddler waited for more.
And waited.
‘Bottle-’
‘Slipping into the tavern-ooh, a cockroach! Wait, no, stop playing with it-just eat the damned thing!’
‘Keep your voice down, Bottle!’
‘Done. Woah, crowded in here. That song… up onto the rail, and there-’ Bottle halted abruptly, then, swearing under his breath, he rose. Stood for a moment, then snorted and said, ‘Come on, Sergeant. We can just walk right on in.’
‘Marines holding the village? Spit Hood on a stake, yes!’
The others heard that and as one they were on their feet, crowding round in relief.
Fiddler stared at all the stupid grins and was suddenly sober again. ‘Look at you! A damned embarrassment!’
‘Sergeant.’ Bottle plucked at his arm. ‘Fid, trust me, no worries on that front.’
Hellian had forgotten which song she was singing. Whatever it was, it wasn’t what everyone else was singing, not that they were still singing, much. Though her corporal was somehow managing a double warble, stretching out some bizarre word in Old Cawn-foreigners shouldn’t sing, since how could people understand them so it could be a mean song, a nasty, insulting song about sergeants, all of which meant her corporal earned that punch in the head and at least the warbling half stopped.
A moment later she realized that the other half had died away, too. And that she herself was the only one still singing, although even to her it sounded like some foreign language was blubbering from her numbed lips-something about sergeants, maybe-well, she could just take out this knife and-
